Recently I’ve been immersed into a Zend Framework project in a way that I’ve never been immersed before. This immersion experience has brought out a few thoughts and lessons that I’ve learned through the process about how to get into a framework, how to start a new project using a framework you’ve never used before, [...]

One of the most hotly contested points of my article on database design was the suggestion that developers drop the use of ENUM and use something else instead. Lots of people argued in favor of ENUM; however, there are several good reasons why developers should reconsider ENUM and use it sparingly.

When I started writing this blog post, I had titled it “Tips for Designing Databases” and I planned to talk about various database design techniques. However, as I did more and more research, it dawned on me that one of the most crucial, and most overlooked, components of database development, is the selection of data [...]

I recently worked on an application I built some time ago. It was built before I had regard for performance or cared about how a MySQL database should be built. As such, it had no indexes.

Below are a list of my top five quick-and-dirty strategies for improving database performance in web applications. These suggestions are culled from recent experience and mixed with some ideas that I’ve implemented in my own code. They’re not high level, but they are something we need consistent reminders about. Here they are…